(a) Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a light guide plate and a backlight assembly including the same, and more particularly, to a light guide plate and a backlight assembly including the same that can prevent color irregularity from occurring at a corner portion of a liquid crystal panel and prevent luminance imbalance between left and right sides of the liquid crystal panel.
(b) Description of the Related Art
A computer monitor, a television, a mobile phone or the like that are widely used needs a display device. Examples of the display device are a cathode ray tube display device, a liquid crystal display, and a plasma display device.
A liquid crystal display, which is one of the most common types of flat panel displays in use, includes two sheets of display panels on which field generating electrodes such as a pixel electrode and a common electrode are formed, and a liquid crystal layer interposed therebetween. The liquid crystal display displays an image by applying voltage to the field generating electrodes to generate an electric field on the liquid crystal layer, thereby determining orientations of liquid crystal molecules of the liquid crystal layer and controlling the polarization of incident light.
Since the liquid crystal display is not a self-luminous device, a light source is needed. In this case, the light source may be a separately mounted artificial light source or natural light. In the case of the artificial light source, a light guide plate (“LGP”) is required in order for emitted light to reach the entire display panel at uniform luminance,
Examples of the artificial light source used in the liquid crystal display are a light emitting diode (“LED”), a cold cathode fluorescent lamp (“CCFL”), and an external electrode fluorescent lamp (“EEFL”).
Among them, the LED has many merits such as a long lifespan, a small size, and low power consumption as compared with other light sources, and therefore the LED is most widely used recently. In the case where the LED is used as a light source, white light can be incident to a liquid crystal panel by mixing red, green and blue diodes.
In this case, since the red diode has a relatively shorter lifespan than the green and blue diodes, a color controller is needed to control intensities of the red, green and blue diodes differently.
In addition, in the case where the white light is generated by mixing different colors of LEDs, color irregularity is caused according to the color of a diode disposed at an end of a light source in a corner portion of the liquid crystal panel.
Further, because the different colors of LEDs influence luminance in different degrees, when the different colors of LEDs are disposed at both ends of the light source, a problem of luminance imbalance of left and right sides of the liquid crystal panel is caused.